Emptiness is a blessing:
it can’t be owned if it doesn’t exist.
*
My father said to bloom but never fruit—
a small trickle
eating its way through stone.
*
I am one kind of alive:
I see everything the water sees.
I told you a turn was going to come
& turn the tower did.
What are the master’s tools
but a way to dismantle him.
*
Who will replace the blood of my mother in me—
a cold spring rising.
She told me a woman made of water
can never crack.
Of her defeat, she said
this is nothing.
Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Ciccarello. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 11, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.